God, Our Father

By Fr. Christopher Foeckler, MJ • Phoenix, AZ

As we continue our summer reflection on God our Father, we turn to St. Teresa of Jesus who taught her sisters to do the same. In her “Way of Perfection”, St. Teresa offers some gems of practical advice to improve our reflection, along with beautiful insights on how God is our Father. 

She begins: “Imagine that this Lord Himself – who taught us this prayer – is at your side and see how lovingly and humbly He is teaching you, and believe me, you should stay with so good a friend for as long as you can before you leave Him.”

Then focusing on the first word – “OUR” – St. Teresa comments on Jesus including us in His prayer to “Our Father”: “O Son of God, my Lord! How is it that You can give us so much with Your first word? It is so wonderful that You should descend to such a degree of humility as to join with us when we pray, and make Yourself the Brother of creatures so miserable and lowly!”

Building on this gift of our Brother, she continues to address Jesus: “You oblige Your Father to fulfill your word, a charge by no means light, since being our Father, He must bear with us, however great our offenses. If we turn to Him, He must pardon us, as He pardoned the prodigal son, must comfort us in our trials, must sustain us, as such a Father is bound to do, for He must be better than any earthly father…He must cherish us; sustain us and at last He must make us participants and fellow heirs with Thee.”

“If you love Me… My Father and I will come and make our home in you.” Jn. 16: 

Then referring to the Father, she encourages us: “However quietly we speak, He is so near that He will hear us; we need no wings to go in search of Him but have only to find a place where we can be alone and look upon Him present within us. Nor need we feel strange in the presence of so kind a Guest; we must talk to Him humbly…but avoid being bashful with God, as some people are, in the belief that they are being humble.” 

“All I want is that we should know and abide with the Person with Whom we are speaking and not turn our backs on Him; for that it seems to me, is what we are doing when we talk to God and yet think of all of vanity. The whole mischief comes from our not really grasping the fact that He is near us and imaging Him far away – so far, that we shall have to go to Heaven in order to find Him.”